I'm going to make up phony baloney round numbers. Also, let's say this is fiction about what happened to the middle class on Mars 15 billenia ago. But, still, interesting...
Let's say the gross national product is $10 trillion dollars.
The government thinks, great, let's take a modest $2 trillion and spend it on works that benefit everyone.
The government excuses the people not working, on fixed income or low salaries from paying any of the $2 trillion.
The government tries to get the $2 trillion from the rich folks. The rich folks though, being in the private sector, move at 100 times the speed of government. Not only do they avoid paying the $2 trillion, but they figure out how to put themselves in positions to spend much of the $2 trillion that the government plans to collect.
Who is left to pay the modest $2 trillion bill that the government thinks is a perfectly fair 20% to run the government? Well they don't take from the poor, they fail at taking from the rich. The government ends up taking the money from the working class. The people who are producing.
It gets worse every year. I'm surprised anyone shows up to work. They must not have air conditioning at home or something. Certainly there are no financial incentives to working anymore. No salary, no healthcare, no pension. What's the point?
The President is an employee. His boss is the tax payer.
United States